The spiritual mind sees
God in everything
In a word,
the spiritual mind sees God in everything.
The worm, the whale, and the tempest, all are instruments in His hand.
The most insignificant, as well as the most splendid agents, further His
ends. The east wind would not have proved effectual, though it had been
ever so vehement, had not the worm first done its appointed work. How
striking is all this! Who would have thought that a worm and a scorching
east wind could be joint agents in doing a work of God? Yet so it was!
Great and small are only terms in use among men, and cannot apply to Him
"who stoops down to behold the things that are in heaven," as well as
"the things that are on earth." They are all alike to Him "who sits on
the circle of the earth." Jehovah can count the number of the stars, and
while He does so, He can take knowledge of a falling sparrow. He can
make the whirlwind His chariot, and a broken heart His dwelling place.
Nothing is great or small with God.
The believer, therefore, must not look upon
anything as ordinary, for God is in everything. True, he may have
to pass through the same circumstances—to meet the same trials—to
encounter the same reverses as other men; but he must not meet them in
the same way, nor interpret them on the same principle; nor do they
convey the same report to his ear. He should hear the voice of God, and
heed His message, in the most trifling as well as in the most momentous
occurrence of the day. The disobedience of a child, or the loss of an
estate, or the death of a friend, should all be regarded as divine
messengers to his soul.
So also, when we look around in the world, we
should see God is in everything. The overturning of thrones, the
crashing of empires, the famine, the pestilence, and every event that
occurs among nations, exhibit traces of the hand of God, and utter a
voice for the ear of man. The devil will seek to rob the Christian of
the real sweetness of this thought; he will tempt him to think that, at
least, the commonplace circumstances of every-day life exhibit nothing
extraordinary, but only such as happen to other men. But we must not
yield to him in this. We must start on our course every morning, with
this truth vividly impressed on our mind—God is in everything! The sun
that rolls along the heavens in splendid brilliancy, and the worm that
crawls along the path, have both alike been prepared of God, and,
moreover, could both alike cooperate in the development of His
unsearchable designs.
- C. H. Mackintosh,
God in Everything
